First Days of School

I am slowly getting caught up on blogging. Still have a ways to go! Kenadee is loving school. It has been weird having her gone all day long. The house has been super quite. Kenadee loves her teacher and has made lots of new friends this year. She is loving lunch time, lots of recess, and math. I hope she continues loving math because I am terrible with math. She is a great little reader and usually is really good to do her homework after school. She has grown up so much lately and has turned into a wonderful helper. She loves to read to Jensen at bedtime and he loves it when she does. She is definitely the little mother around here.

So at the end of the school year last year we were informed that the preschool was going to be changing the schedule to all day preschool for the upcoming school year. It was our choice to choose whether or not we wanted Reese to do it, but if we chose not to we would have to pick her up from school everyday instead of transportation bringing her home. Troy and I talked about it all summer and I really was leaning towards not having Reese do it. It just seemed like SO much for a four year old to be gone Tuesday-Friday 8:30-4:00. I decided to wait and see what the other kids in her class were going to do before we made the decision. The school had a picnic the day before school started and after talking to the parents and her teacher we decided to give it a try. After attending the back to school parents meeting I felt much better about it. I am so thankful for such a wonderful place to send my daughter. I know this is where she needs to be and this is where she is going to get the best help so she is ready to mainstream into our grade school. The staff is unbelievable. They care so much about these kids and they know how to teach them so they can be like every other kid. Reese's teacher is so great. She is also deaf and she has lots to share because of that. She said something on back to school night that has really stuck with me. She talked about how her parents were great and they did the best that they could with her. She is the only deaf person in her family but they never treated her differently. She was just like the rest of them. She told us if she could have changed one thing it would have been that they would have slowed down and made sure that she knew what was going on. Sometimes we get so busy and crazy that I think we do this with Reese. We are always on the go. Going to dance and grandma's house and everywhere else that we go. We need to slow down and make sure Reese knows what is going on. Instead of just being along for the ride she needs to be part of it. Everyday is a learning experience and I hope in the end we get some of this journey right. I never could have imagined what challenges were going to come up in the beginning. When we found out that Reese was deaf we were lost. We had different worries back then. Worrying if she would ever hear. What being deaf was going to mean for her. Worrying about having surgery to get the implant. Worrying about if the implant would work. One thing that I no longer worry about is her deafness holding her back. I know that she will be just fine. She is a smart little girl and everyday I am amazed and grateful for how far she has come. We also made the choice to put her in our neighborhood preschool once a week. It was a last minute decision and something that Troy and I felt very strongly about. She goes on Monday's for two hours. She was so excited when I pulled up in front of teacher Colleen's house on her first day. She jumped out of her seat and said "my turn!" I think she was so excited to go to the same school that Kenadee had gone to. She also loves that her besties Audrey and Charly are there. Tuesday through Friday Ernest picks her up for school. We love Ernest. She is always excited when he pulls up in the van to get her. Reese is usually asleep when he brings her home in the afternoon. It is a good power nap for her. I do have to say that I am mostly enjoying the schedule. The mornings are great and the one-on-one time with Jensen has been fun. I definitely start to miss the girls in the afternoon and I am always ready for them to come home.